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A VETERAN LIFE AGENT. 



BY CONSTANT. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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NOTES 



K VETERAN LIFE AGENT 



BY ''CONSTANT." \ 



Alter ad astra per aspera ; nulla vestigia retrosum. 



PRICE, - - $100. ^^^sl^ToTcT 




STANDARD PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
Boston, Mass. 






Copyright, 1SS7. 



p. H. FOSTER & Co., Printers, 30 Oliver St., Boston, mass. 



Respectfully Dedicated 



Edgar H. Kellogg, 
G. T. G. White, 
L. Spencer Goble, 
H. G. Stephens, 
A. H. Dillon, Jr., 
D. O'Dell, 
Ben May, . 
W. H. Bates, . 
John E. DeWitt, 
Thos. Bennett, 
J. S. Gaffney, . 
J. L. Halsey, 
W. H. Dyer, . 
Joseph Ashbrook,' 
Emory McClintock, 
Sheppard Homans, . 
The Insurance Press 
And the late Henry H. 



of the Home. 

of the Equitable. 

of the Mutual Benefit. 

of the Penn Mutual, 
formerly of the Connecticut Mutual, 

of the New York Life. 
, . of the Equitable. 

of the Mutual Life. 

of the Union Mutual. 

of the Pacific Mutual. 

of the United States. 

of the Manhattan. 

of the Berkshire. 

of the Provident Life and Trust. 

of the Northwestern Mutual. 

of the Provident Savings Life. 
OF the United States. 
Hyde, of Boston. 



All of whom have devoted their time, either in Agency work or in 
the Agents' cause; and all of whom are loved by the Agents. 



The Author. 



PREFACE. 



In presenting this little book to the life 
insurance fraternity, the author desires to 
state that he is aware of its many imper- 
fections, but feels assured of indulgence, 
when the haste with which the notes were 
jotted down is taken into consideration, as 
well as the fact that they are based upon 
the experiences and observation of one, 
who, as a solicitor of life insurance, has 
spared neither pains, nor failed of their re- 
ward. It is upon the living quality of the 
notes, which appeared in The Standard, 
of Boston, shortly after they were penned, 
that he relies for an appreciative reception ; 
they were not laboriously evolved in the 
privacy of the closet, but are direct, if 
somewhat crude, daguerrotypes from the 



pushing, active domain of the life insur- 
ance field man. It is '' Constant s " de- 
sire to give others the benefit of his expe- 
rience and observation and to imbue 
them, if possible, with a confidence and 
enthusiasm equal to his own ; to contribute 
his mite towards hastening the day when 
life insurance shall become a household 
word in every habitable part of the world, 
and all may share alike in its financial ben- 
efits. While not in sympathy with the 
anti-poverty vagaries now current, the 
author does most sincerely believe that 
life insurance, when properly disseminated 
throughout the land, will prove the greatest 
equalizer of wealth that has ever been of- 
fered to the rich and poor on equitable 
terms. 



Note I. 

r\ URING 1886 I never set foot in a 
\J theatre or attended a party, ball, 
^^ church, lecture, political meeting, 
Masonic communication, Grand Army 
Post, — although taking great interest dur- 
ing my life in each of all these things. 
During the year I travelled 8,000 miles in 
all kinds of raih'oad cars. My mind was 
all the time on the whirl as to whether I 
could write another risk. I succeeded in 
averaging over one new risk per day for 
each working day of the year, 313 days, 
each risk averaging about $3,333 and each 
premium about $1 10, and in collecting and 
transmitting the money without clerical aid. 



This was done in new territory, introduc- 
ing one of the very best companies, but one 
without any prestige in the locahties 
worked. My health was a greater part of 
the time a '' holy terror'' to me, and I should 
not have kept up, but for the fact that my 
company gave me its entire confidence. 
This I deserved; but its officers did not 
know that fact. But it did know that its 
Superintendent was to be trusted, and 
trusted me by proxy, on his voucher. 

My chief argument was against the co- 
operative system ; my chief opponents were 
the agents of '' old-line " companies. It 
seems almost impossible to convince agents 
that detraction of other companies injures 
the entire system, and that personal detrac- 
tion of rival agents reacts with the public 
to the injury of the detractor. But in over 
twenty years' very active canvassing I have 
found it lucrative to speak well of deserv- 



ing companies, to keep silent as to those 
of whom I could not speak well, and to aid 
and assist my rivals once they had secured 
encouragement from an intending insurant. 
Insurance men must stand too:ether, if 
they would not fall together. My years 
work has strengthened me in faith and hope 
of doing better for another. To every old- 
line company I extend a hand, and say to 
solicitors of such: Brethren, let us dwell 
together in unity and in 1887 write six 
hundred millions more insurance in the 
United States than we did in 1886. 

Note II. 
The fact that hundreds of thousands of 
men in a few years have joined assessment 
societies and orders which have no non- 
forfeiture features in their certificates proves 
or tends to prove that there was never any 
great demand for non-forfeiture features on 



the part of the public. The popularity of 
Tontines, or so-called Tontine policies, also 
tends to prove the same fact. My experi- 
ence has been that the less I dwelled on 
the non-forfeiture feature of a policy to my 
solicited customer the more likely I was 
to secure him. Why enlarge on easy 
terms of getting out of a contract that it is 
wise to enter into and still wiser to main- 
tain ? 

That there should be some non-forfei- 
ture provisions, all concede; but I think 
the non-forfeiture laws have the fault of 
making policies non-forfeiting too early. 
When asked by the president of a com- 
pany if I had any change in its plans to 
suggest, I answered : " Only one, sir. Do 
not give a paid-up policy before the end of 
the fourth year, nor any cash surrender 
value before the end of seven years. If 
you do that I can sell more of them.". 



10 



"Why?" "Because, first, my customer 
will ab initio be likely to take the amount 
he can reasonably carry for at least several 
years. Second, because I can prove to him, 
to a demonstration, that the company can 
carry him at a lower rate with a late period 
of non-forfeiting privileges than with an 
early period." " Why can it? " '^ Because 
there would be fewer lapses and fewer 
small paid-up policies/' '^ Why fewer small 
paid-up policies ? " " Because the rounder 
agent would find his occupation gone in 
showing the small difference of premium 
in the old and new policies, which would 
be represented by the paid-up.'' 

These arguments may seem to my fellow- 
agents more fitting an officer s side of the 
question. Ah, my good fellow-agent I the 
experienced and successful agent will 
usually coincide with the experienced and 
successful officer. And if you look at the 

11 



matter rightly, I think you will join with 
me in trying to convince our legislators to 
lengthen the period before non-forfeiture 
is compulsory. Look at those Lottery 
Co-ops, of which more next time. 

Note IIL 
A.O.U.W., K. of H., K. & L. of H., Royal 
Arcanum, United Brethren^ Masonic Aid, 
and various other letters, symbols and names 
denoting assessment orders, societies, asso- 
ciations, or companies in reality designate 
lotteries. They do not denote insurance, 
but the antithesis of insurance — a lottery. 
A lottery may be defined as an institution, 
to which a small sum of money being paid 
by an individual, that individual or his fam- 
ily may draw a large amount of money 
upon the drawing, one prize to very many 
blanks — upon the happening of one contin- 
gency out of many contingencies ; the prize 

12 



being paid by the purchasers of the blanks. 
The cause of the mushroom growth of 
these fraternal organizations during the 
last few years is attributable largely to the 
following facts : First, the abolition by the 
various States of lotteries, and the hostil- 
ity of the U. S. Government to the use of 
the mails for the purchase of lottery tick- 
ets. Second, to the want of thorough 
training of the mass of the people, the hoi 
polloi in mathematics. Third, to the latent 
passion for gambling in the human breast. 
Fourth, to the desire to form societies for 
social purposes, and to hold offices of petty 
rank. Fifth, to the desire of the shiftless 
and the careless to satisfy their consciences 
with an experiment at insuring until they 
can muster sufficient courage to purchase 
true indemnity for their families. Sixth, 
to the fact that the entire entrance fees as a 
rule go to the drummer for the article sold. 

13 



Insurance is the reverse of a lottery. An 
aggregation of 10,000 men ascertain the 
amount of money, at a fixed low rate of 
interest, that is necessary to be paid in 
regular instalments to pay each and every 
one of their families a given sum of money 
upon the happening of an absolutely cer- 
tain event — not chance. They then each 
agree to pay that fixed yearly premium re- 
quired to bless each and all of their 
families. There are two corollaries to this 
theorem : Cor. ist. Those who from 
whim or caprice drop their membership 
early, pay the expenses of all. Cor. 2d. 
Those who from necessity cannot continue 
to the end, take paid-up policies, losing 
thereby the interest only on their previous 
payments. 

The regular life insurance company 
therefore has flourished in all modern en- 
lightened communities, such as Great Bri- 



14 



tain, France, Germany, and the United 
States, and has flourished so long and 
passed through so many trials and tribula- 
tions, panics and storms ; has become per- 
fected to such an extent by thought, by 
labor, by experience, by calamity, by pros- 
perity, that we may consider it established 
for centuries to come. The lottery, or as- 
sessment order has not come to stay ; it 
will drop the monied or so-called insurance 
features of its organization and continue 
only for its social or political features. I 
do not believe it aids directly or indirectly 
the growth of the true insurance companies. 
They grow simply through their intrinsic 
elements of merit and through the greater 
facilities for advertising and propagandiz- 
ing afforded by the age. 

As one by one the various cooperative 
orders and companies fail, they may point 
a moral, if not adorn :i tale, but the multi- 

15 



tude will confusedly blame all life insurance 
for a while, on account of the failure of the 
imitation article. In my canvassing, fellow- 
agents, I deem it wiser to oppose as un- 
masonic, un-christian, as anti-insurance all 
assessment or cooperative orders, societies, 
or associations. We can do so in a gentle- 
manly, orderly, and efficient way, and our 
efforts will be surely crowned with success. 

'^ Truth crushed to earth will rise again ; 

The eternal years of God are her's ; 
While Error wounded writhes with pain, 

And dies amid her worshippers.'' 

Note IV. 

The Family Dividend Society of New 
York: Income from members, ^21,895; 
expenses of management, $21,895; losses 
paid, none ; insurance in force, $3,67 2,000. 
Now if the managers of such a society can 
go on with an average membership of i ,000 
persons, and receive from each person $21 

16 



each a year, and the said officers never die, 
and the said members never die, what a 
happy, happy family it would be ! The 
above figures represent actual facts in the 
history of assessment insurance, which any 
student of the State reports may verify. 
They are quoted to show clearly the ab- 
surdity of basing estimates of future cost 
from death upon them, and to show the 
absolute certainty that assessment assur- 
ance strictly and inexorably provides for 
expenses of management first, last, and all 
the time. The Northwestern Masonic Aid 
Association for the year 1884 paid ^99,- 
725.36 in expenses to collect and disburse 
on death-claims paid of $468,997. The 
Connecticut Mutual spent $987,539.10 to 
collect and disburse to policy holders $5,- 
512,306.63. In each case expenses were 
paid, but the model assessment company of 
the Northwest paid out a greater percent- 

17 



age for expenses than the model regular 
company of the Northeast, while the for- 
mer laid by no reserve, and the latter, 
without any additional expense, cared for 
its reserve also. 

Note V. 

Innovation appears as a scarecrow to 
some officers of life companies, and they 
break out all over, as if suffering with an 
itch^ when asked to discard some of their 
time-worn old prejudices. But who are 
the best judges of the wants and demands 
of the people — the agents, who are con- 
stantly brought in personal contact with 
these, or the officers, who are seldom 
seen outside of their sanctums? Is the 
successful agent an inferior being? Does 
it not require more courage, labor, diplo- 
macy, genius, and talent to induce men 
to insure, than to lend money under 

18 



prescribed rules and regulations? The 
agents are field marshals and the officers 
are secretaries. Both agents and officers 
are necessary to the proper conduct of 
successful underwriting, and the better 
they harmonize the more underwriting 
they will effect, but neither should en- 
tirely control the other. 

Genius cannot be hampered by slow- 
going, lazy avarice. Power must not be 
felt. The hand of steel must wear the 
velvet glove. The courtier bends the 
supple hinges of the knee, that thrift may 
follow^ faw^ning; but the free-born Amer- 
ican agent recognizes no monarch but 
the people. The people pay him, and 
he serves the people. It is anomalous 
to say the company pays the agent. The 
agent buys of the company at a whole- 
sale price, and sells the goods at a retail 
price. It is the company's part to make 

19 



its goods salable, and to ship them prop- 
erly. All feudalism must vanish in this 
enlio^htened a^re. 

The agent who leans upon a company 
to help him procure business leans upon 
a broken reed. It is only the firm, self- 
reliant man that can induce others to 
share his own faith in a company, and 
to do justice to their families or their 
own approaching old age, by an annual 
and regular withdrawal of a fixed sum 
of money from the hazards of business 
for life insurance. The agent preaches 
the gospel of savings. The agent says, 
" Little drops of water, little grains of 
sand, make the mighty ocean and the 
mighty land." The agent prevents men 
from being penny-wise and pound-foolish. 
The agent sa3^s, do not place all 3'our 
eggs in one basket, or ship all your 
goods in one vessel, or feed all your cat- 

20 



tie in one pasture, but divide your risks 
with your fellow-men. Take advantage 
of the great laws of average as to invest- 
ments and as to the duration of human 
life. Ride on the turtle's back instead 
of on the hare's. Invest a portion, that 
shall be kept at steady compound interest 
under laws protecting it from waste, and 
carefully guarded by watchful officers 
trained to that business. The agent 
gathers in the premiums, the officer 
invests them and keeps the accounts 
according to law, and then the agent 
carries the money, always needed, to the 
widow or the a^ed man. x\s the assent 
does this, he feels w^ithin his heart the 
benison of God. The agent, being more 
immediately with the public in the trans- 
action of life insurance, catches the voice 
of the age, the demand for innovations, 
quicker than the cloistered officer. 

21 



This, as well as all other ages, must 
have its innovations. Newton, Galileo, 
Shakespeare, Franklin, Lincoln, Beecher, 
were innovators, and there are powerful 
innovations demanded in life insuran'ce 
practice which the people seem deter- 
mined upon. If companies do not lis- 
ten to agents, the hour for improvement 
speeds away, and other companies seize 
the opportunities and enjo}^ the conse- 
quent honors and emoluments. So, most 
worthy officers, equally as worthy agents 
are determined to root out of policies, 
applications, and systems several of the 
old barnacles that retard the progress of 
true insurance. 

Note VI. 

Juries consider one widow as good as 
another in the settlement of life insurance 
cases. They are prone to decide any 

22 



and every case against a company. It 
makes little or no difference whether 
the insured paid his premium or not; 
whether the insured violated his policy 
or not: whether the benehciary killed 
her mother or not; whether he truthfully 
answered any or all the questions in his 
application or not, or whether he was 
insured at his proper age or at a much 
older age or not. If I were a widow, 
and a life insurance ao-ent should even 
look at me only once, I should immedi- 
ately sue his company for its full limit, 
and marry again on the proceeds of my 
judgment. 

So few contested cases have arisen in 
the United States that the bar generally 
is ill intbrmed on life insurance practice, 
and it is only in the highest courts, such 
as the Supreme Court of the United 
States or the Court of Errors and Ap- 

23 



peals of the State of New York, that the 
judges take any interest in life insurance 
jurisprudence. It is only in high courts 
such as these that the companies meet 
with any fair or reasonable show of jus- 
tice. A jury hears of millions of weahh 
being piled away, forgetting to divide the 
$500,000,000 of money by the 1,000,000 
of policy-holders, which division would 
leave $500 equity to each policy-holder, 
and shower their decisions, like the rain, 
in favor of the just and the unjust alike. 
The very fact that it is so speaks volumes 
in favor of the just administration of life 
cases in the hands of the officers of the 
companies before reaching the courts. If 
insurance cases were sufficiently numer- 
ous to be in proportion to those in other 
lines of business, the bar, bench, and 
juries would be more discriminating. 
If I should live a centur}^ and the life 
2^ 



insurance business should continue as 
prosperously as it has for the last ten 
years, I would expect at the end of that 
time to be able to get a verdict even from 
a jury in a county court^ if I had a good 
clear case. But for the next half-century 
little hope of salvage can be reckoned on 
in life insurance cases. If the company 
tights now and wins, it pays the amount 
contested to its attorneys; if it loses it 
pays, in addition, the claim. So that 
without very skilful adjustments, arbitra- 
tions, and compromises, the companies 
are unfairly treated, relatively speaking, 
by our courts and juries. Legislatures 
are very rapid to say what the companies 
shall or shall not do, and to impose taxes 
for the support of the State, but hesitate 
and are reluctant to say that the policy- 
holder shall do his part and that he shall 
suffer if he violates it. 

25 



In Utopia they had a law that if a man 
failed to pay his renewals he should be 
imprisoned until he did; if a wife mur- 
dered her husband for his insurance, she 
should be hanged, and the compan}^ not 
pay the policy; if a man committed sui- 
cide, his heirs, instead of receiving the 
amount of his policy, should pay into 
the treasur}^ of the compan}' its face 
value. 

The moral of my thoughts on the above 
is that, with the exception of the clauses 
for the payment of premiums on time, in 
the proper place, and to the proper per- 
sons, life insurance companies might as 
well do away with all restrictions and 
rest entirely for defence upon the prin- 
ciples of the common law, in which 
most law3^ers and judges are proficient; 
and that if I, as an officer, contested a 
case at all, I would carry it to the Su- 

26 



preme Court of the United States, if the 
amount contested were $5000 or over, 
and to the highest State court if it were 
less than $5000. 

Note VII. 

A thorough acquaintance with the Bible, 
Shakespeare's pla3'S, the Declaration of 
Independence, and Fish's Manual is the 
best preparation for the successful life 
agent. Mens sa7ia in corpore sano and a 
light attack of poverty at the start are 
often prerequisites to success. A sound 
mind in a sound body presupposes the 
possession of honor, integrity, ambition, 
energy, and industry. Acquaintance with 
the first two works mentioned supplies a 
sufficient knowledge of human nature; 
Jefferson's best work will dissolve all 
feelings of false pride as to the nobility 
of the life profession, and Fish's Manual 

27 



gives very valuable practical hints as to 
the art of canvassing, and valuable figures 
illustrating the practical operation of 
tables. 

Next in order the agent wants to sys- 
tematically canvass six hours regularly 
every day, and in a few months the great 
public will have educated him in the eti- 
quette of successful canvassing^ and will 
supply him with illustrations of the truth 
of the parables and proverbs of the Bible. 
Together with constant canvassing of six 
hours daily for a year, if he can manage 
to keep the company of a good actuary 
about half an hour daily, and of a physi- 
cian about the same time daily, I think he 
will be able to swim alone in almost any 
territory; and after a few years' practice, 
will find he has engaged in a more lucra- 
tive and independent profession than either 
law or medicine. 

28 



Note VIII. 

I have canvassed for life policies in the 
States of New Hampshire, Vermont, 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, 
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Dis- 
trict of Columbia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mis- 
souri, Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mich- 
igan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Ne- 
braska, Kansas, Colorado, and California, 
and in the Territories of New Mexico, 
Arizona, and Utah. I have canvassed 
large cities, small cities, villages, and open 
farm, mining, and lumber country. I can 
say good and bad territory for soliciting is 
a myth. 

But some previous study and knowledge 
of proposed territory is desirable. But 

29 



territory is better or worse according to 
the manner in which it has previously 
been cultivated. Territory that has in it 
a number of local agents, and especially 
of locals who are fire, life, and marine 
agents, or real estate and insurance agents^ 
needs a different style of canvass from 
that visited only by specials. In fact^ 
were I superintendent of agencies of a 
company, I would not appoint a local life 
agent; and would get rid of any previ- 
ously appointed. Life insurance should 
be sold b}^ travelling men, and almost 
solely on commission. The travelling 
agent should add some new towns each 
year to his list, and avoid becoming too 
familiar in any one town. If I can avoid 
it, I never canvass the same town again at 
a less interval than one year from my first 
visit; and try and get an interval of two 
years between my second and third visits, 

30 



and increase the gaps of time between 
visits. Not less than one week and not 
more than one month to a place is an- 
other rule that my experience proves to 
be good. If a good medical examiner is 
originally appointed and a good introduc- 
ino- friend is secured, adhere to them, and 
treat them well. Even if you change 
company, try to keep the old examiner 
and the old introducing friend. 

There are many skilful agents now in 
the United States, who can get off a train 
at any station of any railroad in the coun- 
try, and insure a man within tw^enty-four 
hours. There are men who can take a 
railroad and get off at fifty-two stations in 
a year, and average six well insured appli- 
cants at each. These men will not care 
particularly to which railroads they are 
respectively assigned. Of course, the 
beginner is not to meet with a similar ex- 



31 



.perience at the outset^ but by practice an 
average solicitor can thus become a first- 
class one, and write his million dollars of 
new insurance in a year, and with still 
more practice can keep at that pace. Of 
course, he must learn to travel, learn to 
keep his health, learn to think (not to 
talk) on the cars. He must be equipped 
mentally^ and with well selected supplies; 
and last, but not least, have his insurance 
journals reach him on the road. He 
must be wide-awake, alert, graceful, and 
forcible. Such a man can take either 
of a dozen good companies; either of 
a hundred routes, start with $io in his 
pocket-book, and come back at the end 
of a 37ear with all his expenses and liv- 
ing paid, and $5000 cash in his pocket. 
There is room, plenty of room; all the 
territory is good, and all that is needed is 
work and study or study and work to 

32 



develop it. The country is not half can- 
vassed. There are 30,000 post-offices in 
the United States from which an applica- 
tion has not been mailed in the last twelve 

months. 

Note IX. 

A successful life insurance agent tells 
more truth in a year than any other man. 
A minister may magnify the truth; a 
lawyer may falsify; a doctor may prevar- 
icate; but a good life man never speaks 
but truth. Truth is the essence of life 
insurance. Error is its enemy. Life 
insurance is the perfect science of math- 
ematics applied to the wants of man in 
old age, or his dependents after his death. 
The reason agents do not lie may be 
because it does not pay to do so. But I 
think their invariable veracity is due to a 
higher motive than that expressed in the 
adage, ^^ Honesty is the best policy." I 



33 



think it is more on the ground that they 
are " Abou Ben Adhems," and love their 
fellow-men, women, and children. 

A mistake is often made that solicitors 
work only for commissions. This is a 
very serious mistake, and it is often made 
by ofScers who have never been in the 
field. Men actuated solely by commis- 
sions soon quit the ranks and are never 
promoted. Soliciting is not sufficiently 
profitable, if honor and fame are elimi- 
nated from its recompense. Money alone 
can never repay the toil, the chagrin, the 
care, the earnestness, of the soulful agent* 
Only the man who loves the work for the 
work's good end in alleviating the sum of 
human misery, in the prevention of pov- 
erty, in encouraging the propagation and 
education of the race, can, even with the 
largest commissions, remain in the field 
for his lifetime. 

34 



If a good solicitor has a talent for sav- 
ing, he can build up a handsome compe- 
tency for old age, — but a princely for- 
tune, never. I can see palaces builded 
by usury, mansions builded by tricks of 
trade, country-seats owned by other pro- 
fessional men with beguiling tongues, — 
but the thousand happy homes of suc- 
cessful life insurance agents are founded 
upon the immutable principles of Honesty 
and Truth, and their builders will live 
above the skies in a house of many man- 
sions, with the gentle Nazarene, who 
said, " Suffer the little ones to come unto 
me, and forbid them not.'' 

Note X. 

In the year 1900, there will be more 
than one hundred regular life insurance 
companies doing business in the United 
States. Their rates and plans will be 

35 



substantially those of the present thirty- 
five regular companies^ The number at 
present in existence is not sufficient to 
efficiently canvass the existing population 
of the country. There should be at least 
one company for each 1,000,000 of inhab- 
itants in the republic. In 1900, I think, 
there v^ill not be a private cooperative 
assessment association in existence. At 
that time the orders will be on the wane, 
or have totally disappeared as insurance 
organizations — more likely the latter. 

The history of the Knights of Honor, 
of the United Brethren of Lebanon, of 
the Knights of Pythias, ot the Masonic 
organizations, points to this conclusion. 
Their history likewise proves the general 
demand for insurance. In our rapid de- 
v^elopment of population, and attendant 
growth in all lines of business, men are 
too busy to be satisfied with the cum- 

36 



bersome and time-consuming details of 
assessment certificates. In the growth of 
refinement and of general education, men 
will not be pestered with the class of 
talent employed by the assessment compa- 
nies, and in their fraternal organizations 
are already tired of having grim death 
daily paraded before their eyes. The 
public will in the next decade of years 
demand a general return to the scientific 
system of insurance of the " old-line." 

Were this not the case, the Knights of 
Honor would now have on their rolls 
over a quarter of a million of members, 
instead of an eighth of a million. They 
would be progressing in membership, in- 
stead of being merely stationary in that 
regard. Time makes all things even. 
Time pricks bubbles. Time kills assess- 
ment insurance in any shape it may 
appear. 



87 



The regular companies, by the simpli- 
fication of their policies and applications, 
by their promptness in settling losses, by 
their frowning upon the twisting of poli- 
cies, by their care in educating their 
agents in the principles of the business, 
have made immense strides in the last 
three years. Nothing less than a severe 
and general panic can prevent the regu- 
lars from doubling the present number of 
policies in force in the United States in 
the next eight years. And if a great 
panic like that of 1873 were to happen, it 
would sweep entirely out of existence the 
cooperative system in less than two years. 

Every regular agent in the United 
States may with confidence steadily work 
on, knowing that his opportunities are 
constantly increasing and his work con- 
stantly lessening in securing applications. 
In this connection I w^ould advise my 

38 



fellow-agents to drop their own assess- 
ment certificates. They should in all 
cases shun the certificate. Taking a cer- 
tificate as an experiment, or to oblige 
their lodge, or as a good fellow, is not 
and will not be the correct professional 
thing. The same remark applies to insur- 
ance officers and insurance journalists. 
Such a practice is injurious to our pro- 
fessional spirit. 

War, and that to the knife, and the 
knife to the hilt, and the hilt twisted in 
the w^ound, is the right way to kill 
speedily the great insurance heresy. 
Keep to orthodox principles, and the reg- 
ulars are triumphant. 



39 



An Anti-Poverty Song. 



All want we will demolish 
And all poverty abolish, 
Every man shall roll in clover and on flowery beds of 
ease, 

Sleep 'neath crazy quilts of money, 
Swim in floods of milk and honey, 
Wade in streams of Balm of Gilead and in nectar tO' 
his knees ; 

We'll abolish want and wailing, 
And our ship will come a-sailing. 
Loaded down with gold of Ophir and with pearls- 
from Indian seas. 

We'll drink Plenty's golden chalice 
In a thirteen story palace, 

40 



With its curtains made of gold-leaf, and of diamonds 
worked in silk ; 

We will loll on festal couches 
And distend our pampered pouches, 
And no pang of indigestion will our peptic pleasure 
bilk; 

The pie tree shall bloom spontaneous. 
Cake fruit sprout up miscellaneous. 
And the undamned rivers gurgle with their floods of 
buttermilk. 



Yes, the clouds shall drop down manna, 
While the angels sing hosanna ; 
Drop down flakes of richest pastry that Miss Parloa 
would surprise ; 

We'll discuss no other question "^ 

Than the ethics of digestion. 
And the relative nutrition of quail toast and mush- 
room pies ; 

And a host of sylph-like waiters 
Shall attend to serve and sate us, 
Hosts of white millennial angels sent expressly from 
the skies ! 

S. W. Foss in Tid Bits, 

41 



Lines read before the Life Insurance As- 
sociation OF New York, April 19, 1887. 



Please list to my muse, tho' it limps as it sings 

Of nonsense, you know, some nonsense, you know; 
And endeavors to tell you of evident things 

That are nonsense, pure nonsense, you know. 
Things which we permit or we do and are rife. 
The outcome of greed and its wild, senseless strife, 
Which bring but dishonor to our business life. 
Such things are but nonsense, you know. 

And first there's the thing we all of us hate. 

It's nonsense, you know, clear nonsense, you know . 
It's familiar to all, it's name is rebate, 

And that's nonsense, sheer nonsense, you know. 
By it merit and value to gutters are tossed 
In an unseemly scramble to lower the cost. 
In which manhood as well as the profit is lost, 
~ And that's nonsense, rank nonsense you know. 

It's a practice of some to denounce all the rest. 
That's nonsense,you know,crude nonsense,you know; 

To prove others worthless and their own the best — 
(And that's nonsense, weak nonsense, you know.) 

With misleading ratios, whose truths only tell 

How figures may lie and men honor will sell 

42 



For a mess of poor pottage or birthright in — well, 
Such practice is nonsense, you know. 

It's a very vile bird that befouls its own nest, 

That's nonsense, you know, vile nonsense, you know ; 

That's just what one does when he slanders the rest, 
And that's nonsense, mean nonsense, you know. 

Who slanders his rival stains not him alone, 

The filth he would throw is not all of it thrown ; 

Part sticks, and part spatters — he smirches his own, 
And that's nonsense, foul nonsense, you know. 

To urge men to drop the insurance they've got 

Is nonsense, you know, flat nonsense, you know : 
Not to urge men to keep the insurance they've bought : 

Is nonsense, w^eak nonsense, you know. 
If to build yourselves up you first must undo 
The work done by others, your own act proves you 
An incompetent sneak, a human cuckoo. 

And that's nonsense, nonsense, you know. 

To add wrong to wrong makes neither one right. 

It's nonsense, you know, nude nonsense, you know ; 
We will never bring peace by keeping the fight, 

That's nonsense, thin nonsense, you know. 
But here banded together in honor and peace, 
Let's see to it that these vile practices cease, 
Then will business with honor and profit increase, 
No nonsense about that, you know. 

43 



The Underrating of Underwriting. 



A POEM READ BY Dr. C C. BoMBAUGH, EdITOR OF 

THE Baltimore Underwriter, before the 

Boston Life Underwriters' Asso- 

sociATiON, Feb. 15, 1887. 



While strolling along toward the close of the day 

With the motley procession that lines Broadway^ 

Two swells of the Order of Golden Fleece 

Sauntered by in a rig of the latest caprice, 

And as one to a passer did slightly bend, 

The other inquired, " Why, who is your friend ! '^ 

But the dude, quite unequal to such an occasion^ 

Stammered out indistinctly some sort of evasion, 

When the questioner said, '' Are you crazy. Van, 

To recognize thus an insurance man? 

Why, there isn't a fellow in all our set 

That would make such an ass of himself, you bet. 

If he were a sport, base-baller, prize-fighter, 

I might understand ; but a — aw — underwriter ! '^ 

Now if this had been only some idle chaff. 
Some impromptu quiz to provoke a laugh, 
'Twould have taken its place with the badinage 
That enlivens youth and amuses age. 

44 



But 'twas plain enough that this parvenu 

Had been trained to airs that were quite too-too, 

To worship and ape \ht Jeunesse dore 

To scoff at his betters as common clay, 

And sneeringly look from his altitude down 

On the manhood that smiles at an upstart's frown. 

I burned with resentment, but life is too short 

To waste any powder on game of that sort. 

Every dog has his day — let the snob have his say — 

So thinking, I took a divergent way. 

Not long after this, at some evening charades, 

I encountered a bevy of radiant maids, 

So lovely, so winsome, so sparkling, so bright, 

They'd have melted the heart of an anchorite ; 

Their faces were beaming with innocent fun. 

And they soon captured me as they caught everyone. 

Their witchery charmed the fleet hours away, 

And we had, ere we parted, a little by-play. 

I summoned them round me, acknowledged my debt, 

And said that to pay it a husband I'd get 

For each one who'd tell me what sort of a spouse 

She'd consider most handy to have in the house ; 

Or my questioning meet with a negative parry. 

And frankly say whom she would rather not marry. 

To this proposition they gave their assent. 

And to each one in turn with the question I bent. 

45 



*^ First." — '' I would rather not marry a sailor : 
Think of three years' cruise on a frigate or whaler ! '' 
^*Next/' — '^ I don't want my husband's place to be 

filled 
By a soldier ; he might go to war and be killed." 
" Next." — '' I don't want a preacher, because, as you 

know, 
I could neither to plays nor to opera go." 
" Next." — '^ I don't want a scholar or bookworm ta 

wed; 
They are always so late in getting to bed." 
" Next." — Thanks, but I don't need assistance at all : 
I have plenty of slaves at my beck and my call." 
" True," I said, as I toyed with a China aster, 
" But wouldn't you give allyom slaves for one master ?'^ 
" Next." — '' For me only one is under the ban : 
I don't want to marry an insurance man." 
*^But why?" I at once interposed — ^'what's the 

reason ? 
Are you honest, or is it a joke of the season ? " 
"Well, you know what they say of insurance men; 
You know how they're talked of again and again ; 
People say they don't pay their debts when they're 

due. 
And what every one says, you know, must be true." 
"But Aid you ever know, cd^n you a case name 
Where they were unwilling to meet a just claim?" 
" I know nothing about it — ^just know what I'm told^ 
And I've heard it so often the story is old." 

46 



''Well," I said in reply, " I once heard of a Miss 
Who would rather have plunged in the deepest abyss 
Than with one of four things which she named ever 

mate, 
So extreme her dislike, so emphatic her hate : 
A man of small stature ; a cripple ; a head 
Surmounted with hair unmistakably red ; 
And, as shown in our social economy's plan, 
A tailor, who's only one-ninth of a man. 
Shall I tell you the sequel, you dear little railer? 
She married a little^ lame^ scarlet-haired tailor ! 
Now I'm willing to wager that, one of these days, 
You'll select from the class you affect to dispraise 
A true-hearted partner, whose love will not cease 
As you walk the long pathway together in peace." 

I left the gay group and the dazzle of light. 

And on my way homeward communed with the night. 

I felt that if simpletons crossed my path, 

'Twere folly to empty the vials of wrath. 

But I vowed, if revilers the friends condemn 

Who have stood by me, I will stand by them. 

To the mark straightforward the arrow flies. 

Till it pierce their detraction, their malice, their lies. 

Opportunity happened ; it came to pass 
That a limb of the law of the shyster class. 
Who was eastward bound on a Washington train, 



Kept pouring invectives like showers of rain. 

Every passenger turned to learn what it meant, 

Such noise from a stormy belligerent. 

'Twas the same old song that I heard again — 

Though in harsher key — of insurance men : 

They were miscreants, swindlers, cormorants, knaves. 

Stained and corrupted with all that depraves. 

I endured it a while — I was used to the racket 

Of popguns encased in a hat-passer's jacket. 

Then I turned to the source of this clatter and clang 

To see who it was. He was one of the gang 

That the colored depositors had to thank 

For stealing their funds in the Freedmen's Bank. 

He rescued a chent, in prison immured 

For burning a store that was over-insured: 

And then he proceeded the office to rob 

Of the whole amount claimed, thus completingj^the 

job. 
But it isn't worth while to take up your time 
In recounting his ventures in legalized crime. 
Suffice it to say that he met with a check 
In conniving with others an office to wreck ; 
He was eager to grasp a receivership prize. 
With all that that damnable word implies, 
But the partial impairment was made up again ; 
Hence his venomed assaults on insurance men. 

At once I unlimbered a Gatling gun, 
And the hot shot rattled till every one 

48 



Of the masks that he wore was torn away, 
And his false heart bared to the light of day; 
Till all who bore witness and saw the spur, 
The governing motive, could safely infer, 
If there were in your closet a skeleton's bones, 
Whether he was the one to be casting stones. 

Twas a different thing when a palsied crone. 
Who had nothing left of her old hearthstone — 
Nothing but embers and ashes and tears. 
In place of the dwelhng of life-long years — 
From the depths of despair at her lonely lot. 
Made a vain appeal to restore her cot. 
For the wildcat laughed in his sleeve that day- 
'Twas his to receive, but not his to repay. 

'Twas a different thing when a worn out clerk. 
As he neared the close of his earthly work, 
Learned that the tax on his scanty store 
To keep the wolf from the household door. 
That the thrift of years, to his heart's dismay. 
Had taken wings and had flown away. 
That the saving strained for a day of need 
Was no longer a staff but a broken reed. 

But what, 'twill be questioned, has this to do 
With men to their faith and their duty true ; 
With men who are running the high career 

49 



Of credit and honor from year to year? 

Good friends, here assembled this annual night, 

Is it needful you suffer by reflex light ? 

If tricksters and traitors invade your camp, 

Does that brand you with a Judas-stamp ? 

If thieves in your livery seek disguise, 

Shall that to your loyalty close men's eyes ? 

If malice and envy your pathway pursue, 

Why, what, after all, can it matter to yoic ? 

You have only to quietly turn your back 

On the slurs of the fool and the shams of the quack. 

You have only to go your appointed way. 

And the dictates and precepts of conscience obey : 

Regardless of slander your mission fulfil ; 

To be true to yourselves through good and through 

ill; 
To honor the name that you bear, and then 
Thank God that you are insurance men. 




50 




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